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The Ripley Scroll – Part 3

The Red Lion. The Green Lion. The Mouth of Choleric beware.Here is the last of the Red, and the beginning to put away the dead. The Elixir Vitae.

Take the father that Phoebus so high That sit so high in majesty With his beams that shines so bright In all places wherever that he be For he is father to all things Maintainer of life to crop and root And causeth nature for to spring With the wife beginneth soothe For he is salve to every sore To bring about this prosperous work Take good heed unto this lore I say unto learned and unto clerk And Homogenie is my name Which God made with his own hand And Magnesia is my dame You shall verily understand. Now I shall here begin For to teach thee a ready way Or else little shall thou win Take good heed what I do say Divide thou Phoebus in many parts With his beams that be so bright And this with nature him convert The which is mirror of all light This Phoebus hath full many a name Which that is full hard to know And but thou take the very same The philosophers stone ye shall not know Therefore I counsel ere ye begin Know it well what it should be And that is thick make it thin For then it shall full well like thee Now understand what I mean And take good heed thereto Our work else shall little be seen And turn thee to much woe As I have said this our lore Many a name I wish he hath Some behind and some before As philosophers doth him give In the sea without lees Standeth the bird of Hermes Eating his wings variable And maketh himself yet full stable When all his feathers be from him gone He standeth still here as a stone Here is now both white and red And all so the stone to quicken the dead All and some without fable Both hard and soft and malleable Understand now well and right And thank you God of this sight